What is your definition of “intermediate”?

[mamakash]

What would qualify a person as an intermediate player? I thought it might be interesting to get the opinions of the board and start a conversation. My original definition was based along the lines of my original tutor by Bill Ochs. I was under the impression that after I finished the initial lessons, I had moved out of beginner and into intermediate. I stumbled through most of the songs in the book, got to the “advanced” section on ornamentation and said, “Oh, Wow! Now I’m doing advanced material!” I did purchase Gereldine Cotter’s book and tape, but remember finding the tunes way too advanced for me. I bought a couple tune books, learned a couple songs, eventually got bored and put away my whistles.
I happened to pick them up again a couple weeks ago and realized I had gotten rusty. So I started back in Bill’s book again. I skipped the tutor section but went back to the first tunes I had thought I had mastered years ago. And here’s the funny thing. I had been so eager to play those tunes when I first went through the book I had played them all wrong! I sat down with my small tape player and listened to each song and then played them as slow as I possibly could. It was a lot of fun . . . they actually sound correct now when I play them and I’m not fudging or tripping over notes in an effort to play them.
I’m taking off my badge of “intermediate player” and slapping on an “advanced beginner” button.
I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. Or I could blame my inflated ego.

[Bloomfield]

I think I am the eternal intermediate player. But then I am not in for the fame and glory.

[bigpow5]

This sounds like you're on to something good :

It was a lot of fun . . .

there's no need to label anything:

I’m taking off my badge of “intermediate player” and slapping on an “advanced beginner” button.

I like the fact that I'll never get it right. This way there's no pressure and I can enjoy every step of the way.

[Wombat]

This is an answer that has nothing to do with ITM specifically.

I think it has to be defined in terms of technical competence. There are musicians who can barely play their instruments who have no.1 records and who make a very good living playing. Others who play brilliantly have never played for money and never been inside a studio.

To be intermediate you need to be able to play tunes of some difficulty, accurately, at a suitable tempo and with convincing rhythm. Some fluffs are allowed. You need to be able to play tunes of all the kinds you would be called on to play in the style you are learning, but not the hard ones, and you would need to be able to handle all tempos except, perhaps, very fast. You would not need to be capable yet of significant controlled expressiveness but you would need to be aware that that is something to work on soon. You should have made a start on the ornamentation suitable to the type of music you play but need not be good at it yet. You should be aware of the importance of improvised rhythmic and melodic variation and be able to do both in a small way. In short, you can play well enough to see where you need to be going to become a good player.

That's just my take on it. I'm not sure I can justify all of these requirements—let's see if I can if people dispute them—but this just seems definitive of being intermediate to me.

[MTGuru]

I agree completely with Bigpow5. However ...

If you're still relying on tutorial books, and occasionally referring to tunes as songs, then you might want to wait a while before wearing that button.

One of the signs that you're an advanced player is when other people start wanting to imitate you.

[colomon]

The weird thing about the labels is -- at least if you're talking about beginner, intermediate, advanced as usually used by ITM music camps in North America -- in the big picture, they are all just different shades of "rank beginner."

I mean, I was the most advanced student in an "advanced" class six years ago. Since then I've made vast improvements in my playing and learned hundreds of tunes. But really getting into good traditional music has left me very aware of my myriad shortcomings.

Frankly, I'm not at all confident I really understand how to play any Irish form other than reel and hornpipe. I know for sure I do not understand the subtleties of slides and polkas; I remain unsure that I have a proper grasp on jigs. I fret about my tuning and the volume of my high notes. Etc.

Right now I'm just hoping that with a couple of years more hard work, I can graduate from the ranks of the novices -- and then the learning can really begin.

[Wanderer]

I agree completely with Bigpow5. However ...

If you're still relying on tutorial books, and occasionally referring to tunes as songs, then you might want to wait a while before wearing that button.

One of the signs that you're an advanced player is when other people start wanting to imitate you.

Really now, I don't think calling tunes "songs" has anything to do with how well one plays.

I can agree with Wombat's definition of intermediate player.
I see things pretty simply...

As a beginner, you're still struggling to get control of your fingers and your instrument. Your fingers trip over themselves, you squeak and squawk and blow out of tune. You find yourself breathing in funny places, and when you think about your breathing and your finger placement and stuff, it just flustes you all the more and you mess up again.

As an intermediate player, you have, to a degree, gotten control of your instrument, and you are focused more on learning the music. The instrument doens't come (very often!) between you and your music. You're more aware of, and have control over, tempo, phrasing, tuning, etc.

I'll tell you what an advanced player is when I think I've gotten there

[RonKiley]

An intermediate player is one that is much better than I am.

Ron

[Wombat]

I was warned we'd get Colomon's answer but, as an intermediate, I've been around long enough to know that already.

I think that maybe the extremely tough way of using the term—almost nobody is advanced—is peculiar to ITM. In some respects, it seems odd to speak of this kind of thing at all in connection with folk music. Were Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and John Lee Hooker less than advanced because they were extremely technically limited instrumentalists? The very question seems wrong-headed. In connection with blues it is wrong-headed. Musical depth here has nothing much to do with technical proficiency or with breadth of repertoire but with a certain kind of idiomatic expressiveness.

I can make sense of it by thinking in terms of beginner, intermediate and advanced students. Yes, I know we are students for life, in one sense of the term, but I'm using it in the sense in which you stop being a student when you get your Ph.D. The other sense is useful to remind people of how hard the journey is but not for classifying people into interesting groups. In this sense, jazz musicians at graduate school are advanced students even though they haven't yet started their professional careers.

This makes sense. Once you stop being a student in this narrow sense of the term, you can ask how deep or expressive or technically accomplished a player is but not how 'advanced.' It's not that you can't stipulate any number of significant meanings for the term; it's rather that there are more precise and revealing terms to use when asking after someone's playing credentials.

[Bloomfield]

To be intermediate you need to be able to play tunes of some difficulty, accurately, at a suitable tempo and with convincing rhythm. Some fluffs are allowed. You need to be able to play tunes of all the kinds you would be called on to play in the style you are learning, but not the hard ones, and you would need to be able to handle all tempos except, perhaps, very fast. You would not need to be capable yet of significant controlled expressiveness but you would need to be aware that that is something to work on soon. You should have made a start on the ornamentation suitable to the type of music you play but need not be good at it yet. You should be aware of the importance of improvised rhythmic and melodic variation and be able to do both in a small way. In short, you can play well enough to see where you need to be going to become a good player.

You're such an ontologist.

[Innocent Bystander]

An intermediate player is one that is much better than I am.

Ron

I was aspiring to say that...

The badges are not the person.

[Wombat]

To be intermediate you need to be able to play tunes of some difficulty, accurately, at a suitable tempo and with convincing rhythm. Some fluffs are allowed. You need to be able to play tunes of all the kinds you would be called on to play in the style you are learning, but not the hard ones, and you would need to be able to handle all tempos except, perhaps, very fast. You would not need to be capable yet of significant controlled expressiveness but you would need to be aware that that is something to work on soon. You should have made a start on the ornamentation suitable to the type of music you play but need not be good at it yet. You should be aware of the importance of improvised rhythmic and melodic variation and be able to do both in a small way. In short, you can play well enough to see where you need to be going to become a good player.

You're such an ontologist.

More of a gerontologist these days.

[FJohnSharp]

This is an answer that has nothing to do with ITM specifically.

I think it has to be defined in terms of technical competence. There are musicians who can barely play their instruments who have no.1 records and who make a very good living playing. Others who play brilliantly have never played for money and never been inside a studio.

To be intermediate you need to be able to play tunes of some difficulty, accurately, at a suitable tempo and with convincing rhythm. Some fluffs are allowed. You need to be able to play tunes of all the kinds you would be called on to play in the style you are learning, but not the hard ones, and you would need to be able to handle all tempos except, perhaps, very fast. You would not need to be capable yet of significant controlled expressiveness but you would need to be aware that that is something to work on soon. You should have made a start on the ornamentation suitable to the type of music you play but need not be good at it yet. You should be aware of the importance of improvised rhythmic and melodic variation and be able to do both in a small way. In short, you can play well enough to see where you need to be going to become a good player.

That's just my take on it. I'm not sure I can justify all of these requirements—let's see if I can if people dispute them—but this just seems definitive of being intermediate to me.

I aspire to intermediacy.

[Bloomfield]

... and I'm a member of the mediocracy.

[colomon]

I was warned we'd get Colomon's answer but, as an intermediate, I've been around long enough to know that already.

I think that maybe the extremely tough way of using the term—almost nobody is advanced—is peculiar to ITM. In some respects, it seems odd to speak of this kind of thing at all in connection with folk music. Were Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and John Lee Hooker less than advanced because they were extremely technically limited instrumentalists? The very question seems wrong-headed. In connection with blues it is wrong-headed. Musical depth here has nothing much to do with technical proficiency or with breadth of repertoire but with a certain kind of idiomatic expressiveness.

Any decent musician who practices a couple of years can become highly technically proficient on whistle. But all that means is you can wiggle your fingers very quickly with a fairly high degree of accuracy. When you get right down to it, this has very little to do with actually playing music.

What those blues guys you name have, as you say, is a deep idiomatic understanding of their music. At least 90%, probably more, of "advanced" North American ITM players do not have that sort of understanding of Irish music. (Though it does depend on the tune type, I think -- lots of us can handle reels more-or-less correctly. Very few can handle slides.) I'm admitting I don't have it, either -- and it took me years of learning to learn I didn't have it.